Love & Warlock
by amythis
Summary: After Tony's all-nighter, it may take a little magic to get him back with Angela. Luckily, Sam is dating a warlock. Set in 1990 and '91.
1. All's Fair

"Sam? That's my mother's name."

Samantha Micelli rolled her eyes. That was one of the oldest lines in the book. "Yeah? And Leslie is my father's name."

"No, really, it's short for Samantha."  
"So's mine," she admitted. Maybe he wasn't flirting with her. After all, it wasn't that long ago that she'd thought that a married grad student was in love with her. College men, Mason aside, were hard to read. She was almost a college student herself. In fact, she was at Admissions & Records, turning in paperwork for Ridgemont. It wasn't her first choice, but it had worked out that she was going to go to her father's college. She was not going to live at home though. The recent developments in her father's love life had really convinced her she needed some space.

"My name's Adam," said the A & R clerk, shaking her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, hi, nice to meet you." Maybe he was just friendly, and she may as well be friendly back.

"You, too." He looked down at the form again. "Micelli. Any relation to Tony Micelli?"

"His daughter."

"I thought you said his name was Leslie." He was teasing her now, so she played along.

"His middle name." He'd probably hate that even more than Morton.

"Catchy. So my shift is almost over. You wanna go out for coffee?"

He was flirting with her. But she didn't really mind. And it was only coffee. "Yeah, OK."

"Meet you at the cafeteria in about fifteen minutes?"

"Sure."

They finished up her paperwork and then said goodbye. She walked around campus, which was pretty empty, except for people doing summer classes. It was a nice campus. She thought she'd like going there. Her father definitely did, but he was almost 40 and had never thought he'd get any higher education, while it had always been his dream for her. She wasn't that ambitious, despite his example and Angela's.

She sighed, thinking of Angela. Neither her dad nor Angela had said much about her dad's new relationship, or what it meant to their relationship. Not that they officially had one but Angela had admitted that they'd talked about talking about marriage. And they'd been together in their weird way for almost six years, not a couple but like a couple.

Until "she" came along. Sam forced herself to think the name, Kathleen. It was hard not to hate that woman, although she knew it was more Dad's fault. He led Angela on, made her think that they might have a future, and then he ended up dating a classmate. In fact, Sam had the feeling he had hopped into bed with Kathleen, although no one, not even Mona admitted that. It was the only explanation that made sense, this sudden relationship, blindsiding all of them, maybe even Dad.

Sam sometimes wished she had chosen a college further away. She hated being around Dad and Kathleen, even if Dad was shy about being affectionate with his girlfriend at home. And she hated being around Angela, much as she loved her, almost like a mother. Angela was being very brave, not crying in front of anyone, but Sam was sure Angela's heart was broken. And there was nothing Sam could do or say to comfort her.

Sometimes she wondered if love was worth it. She'd thought she was in love with Jesse a couple years ago and then he'd dumped her for another girl, and he was hardly her first boyfriend to do that. Guys paid attention to Sam—it wasn't just whatshisname, Adam—but they never seemed to stick around.

Still, she looked up and smiled when Adam joined her at the cafeteria. He was cute, although a little nerdy. Tall and thin, with brown hair and brown eyes like hers, but much WASPier-looking.

"What kind of coffee do you like?" he asked.

"Black with a touch of sugar."

"OK, I'll be right back."

That was nice of him to treat her, whether or not he was hitting on her. Not that she could be bought for just coffee. Even Mona wasn't that easy.

He came back with the coffees and she thanked him.

"You're welcome."  
"So, Adam, since you know all about me, why don't you tell me about you?"

"I don't know all that much, other than your name and what kind of coffee you like."  
"Didn't you read my file?"

"Yeah, but that's personal information and we're trained to block it out as soon as we take it."

"Then I guess you don't know I'm jailbait."

"Only till August."

She blushed. "I thought you didn't remember my personal information."

"Well, I couldn't help noticing that. And I remembered from taking classes with him that your father is an Italian ex-jock. And probably an overprotective father. But don't worry, I'm not looking to corrupt you."

"What are you looking for?"

"To get to know you, as a person."  
"Well, tell me about you as a person first."

"OK. My name is Adam Stephens. I'm 20, born in October. I grew up in Westport."

"I grew up mostly here in Fairfield."

"But your dad's from Brooklyn, right?"

"Yeah, so am I. Though I lost my accent after a year or two."

"He's still got his."  
Sam smiled. "Less than he used to."

"I bet your accent was cute."

"Thanks. I think. Tell me more about you."

"OK. Um, I'm majoring in Chemistry."

She waited for him to make a flirtatious remark about whether they had chemistry, but he didn't. So she said, "I'm thinking about Communications."

"My older sister, Tabitha, did that. She's a TV weather girl, just local TV at this point, but she's just getting started."

"Oh, yeah, I think I've seen her." A very pretty blonde, maybe 24 or 25.

"And my dad is in advertising."

"Really? So's Angela!" Sam wondered if they knew each other. She'd have to find out what firm he was with.

"Who's Angela?"

She hesitated and then said, "Do you have an hour?"

"Let's synchronize our watches."

She laughed, shook her head, and set her watch by his.


	2. Son of a Witch

"What's on your mind, Little Brother?"

Adam sighed. They were in their 20s but Tabitha still couldn't ignore her seniority. "Well, Big Sis, I met a girl."  
"Finally!"

"No, wait, let me finish."

"Go on. I want all the details, if they're not too gory."

"No, not really. Well, not about her and me."

"Uh, OK."

"You see her father is a housekeeper."

"Adam, don't be so prejudiced! This is the '90s."

"No, that's not the problem. He's a nice guy. I've met him. Anyway, he works for an ad exec, a female ad exec."

"Which firm?"

"She used to be at Wallace and McQuade, but a few years ago she started her own company, the Bower Agency."

"Oh, Dad says they're good, very creative."

"Yeah? Well, anyway, Mrs. Bower, she's divorced and the girl's father is a widower and Sam, that's the girl's name—"

"Like Mom? Oh, Adam, how Freudian of you!"

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Anyway, Sam thinks the two of them, her dad and Mrs. Bower, are in love but afraid to say anything because her dad works for Mrs. Bower."

"What does that have to do with you guys?"

"I'll get there. So Sam's dad, Mr. Micelli, and Mrs. Bower were getting closer and closer, but then he started seeing another woman."

"Well, that's not so bad. I mean, if neither of them is going to say anything, then they have to be allowed to date other people."

"I know, but it's the way he went about it. It felt like cheating. And he's still seeing that woman." Kathleen Sawyer. Adam had had a couple classes with her. She was a tall blonde, not his type, and very opinionated, which wasn't bad in itself, but he preferred girls who were feisty but could see other points of view, like Sam seemed to be.

"OK, but so what? Can't you date Sam? What do you care about her father's love life?"

He sighed. "The problem is I can see how unhappy it's making her. Mrs. Bower has been like a mother to her, ever since she and her dad moved in."

"Wait, he's a live-in housekeeper?"  
"Well, yeah."  
"God, what a soap opera!"

"Yeah."  
"And you want to get mixed up in that?"

"Tabs, you know how it is for us. We've got magic and meddling in our blood."

Tabitha looked around her dressing room as if someone might've heard that, although she'd done a spell to hide their conversation from non-magical ears. "Yeah, but think what Dad would say."

"I know, I know." They mostly tried to resist using magic. That was how their mother had raised them, and it was how she tried to live. But like it was for Mom, there were times when it was all too tempting. And of course their relatives egged them on. He knew exactly what his grandparents, especially Grandmama Endora, would say if he told them about Mr. Micelli and Mrs. Bower.

"Adam, I know you want to help this girl, but you need to be really careful. Are you going to tell her you're a warlock?"

"I just met her!"

"OK, then how are you going to help her without her getting suspicious?"

"That's another problem."

"Well, here's another. Love is a very tricky thing. It can't always be fixed by magic. And you know that Mom has forbidden us to use anything like love potions."  
"I wouldn't do that. I would just try to make opportunities for Mr. Micelli and Mrs. Bower to realize they're in love with each other."  
"Nothing too obvious I hope."

"Me? I'm the master of subtlety."

She snorted, although usually she used her nose daintily, even when performing a spell.

"Ms. Stephens, you've got five minutes," yelled one of the crew members.

She broke the no-eavesdropping spell to say, "Be right there." Then she whispered, "I really hope you know what you're doing. And I hope our parents don't kill you when they find out."

He hoped that, too, but he said, "Don't worry about me. You worry about your weather bunny gig."

"I'm a meteorologist!" she snapped. That always got to her. She was good at her job though. He knew she was sometimes tempted to monkey with the weather, make it nicer for most people and not so nice for a select few, but she had managed to resist so far.

He wasn't sure he could resist helping Sam Micelli. He really did like her. She was gorgeous but down to earth, with a good sense of humor. And he hated seeing her unhappy. Plus, it sounded like her father wasn't too happy with his new girlfriend, and Mrs. Bower couldn't have been in too good an emotional state either.

He'd hoped that Tabitha would have some ideas on how to bring two people together. She was not only older but had a lot more dating experience. He was usually shy with girls, but something about Sam made him want to talk to her. Anyway, Tabitha was right that he'd have to proceed cautiously.

Adam had visited the studio before, so everyone was used to him and knew that he knew how to stay out of the way. He watched Tabitha's weather report and was proud of her, although he would never admit that. They got along pretty well. Sam had told him she had a sort of kid brother, Mrs. Bower's son, not technically related of course, but they had gone through sibling rivalry and other family-like ups and downs. She sounded a lot more insulting of Jonathan Bower than Tabitha ever was of Adam, but on the other hand, Sam had probably never turned Jonathan into a toad and other forms of animal life.

Adam considered himself lucky to be part of a big but close-knit family. Still, he wasn't too happy when his Grandpapa Maurice appeared in his car on the way back to Westport, dressed in a top hat and tails and exclaiming, "I hear you need a little help with romance, My Boy!"


	3. Catching the Hunter

"OK, Maurice, what are you up to?"  
"Maurice? Mrs. Robinson, my name is Christopher Hunter."

Mona rolled her eyes. "Cut the crap, Maury, I'm on to you."

He looked around the living room.

"Don't worry, no one else is here and Angela takes forever to get ready. Especially when it's for a date with a Greek god with smoldering eyes and a butt to match."  
"Oh, Mona, you'll make me blush."

"Maury, you owe me an explanation of why you're romancing my daughter in the body of a well-preserved 40-year-old."

"Why does a man do anything? For the cause of love."

"You're in love with Angela?" That was the last thing she needed. It was bad enough when she thought Christopher was a perfect stranger, emphasis on perfect. Now that she had figured out his true identity, she definitely did not want him stealing Angela from Tony, even if Tony almost deserved it.

"Of course not. You know I only fall for fiery redheads."  
"And how is dear Endora? Does she know about this?"  
"My ex-wife was well the last we spoke. And, no, she doesn't know of this favor I'm doing for our grandson."

"Your grandson? Little Adam?"

"Little Adam is 20 now and quite smitten with your housekeeper's daughter."

Mona sank into a chair. This was even more complicated than she feared. "Does Sam know about this? I mean Sam Micelli. Does she even know that Adam is a warlock?"

"No, he hasn't told her yet. Have you told her about your powers?"

Mona sighed. That was a confession she'd made to only one mortal, her beloved late husband Robert, who had accepted it much more easily than she'd heard that Maurice's son-in-law had accepted his Sam's magic. Mona's powers were weak compared to Maurice's family, a fact that Endora never let her forget on the odd occasions they met. Mona could do some mind-reading, she had once performed a simple voodoo spell involving dolls and a kiss in the garden, and she was aging more slowly than a mortal, but she was not one of the heavy-hitters. Both of Samantha Stephens's half-blood children had turned out magical, but there were few less magical offspring than Angela Robinson. Mona loved her little girl, nerdy klutz though she was, but there were obviously no supernatural powers in that generation. And it didn't seem to have skipped down to Jonathan either.

"I thought not."

"Don't look so smug, Maury. You know I don't live in your world."

"You don't know what you're missing."  
"Don't worry, I seem to have fun in this one."

"I'm sure you do." He was still as much of a flirt as ever. And, in the guise of Christopher Hunter, more attractive than ever. But she remembered he hadn't said what he was up to. "You still haven't explained yourself."

"Well, I believe Sam, your Sam, has a father who has been in love with his boss for almost six years."

"Yes, she does. Not that the bonehead will ever admit it, but I know he does. And Angela, my Angela, his boss, won't admit how she feels either." (Well, there was the time that Mona was able to get Angela to talk in her sleep about her feelings for Tony, but that had been a dead end as usual.)

"So Adam tells me. So I'm trying to nudge them along."

"By being Mr. Perfect?"

"Ah, how you flatter me, My Dear."

"Not at all. But don't you think you're overdoing it? Angela isn't as suspicious as I am, but she's bound to catch on eventually. Not to you being a warlock but to you not being who you claim to be."

"I know I can't keep this up forever. But I'll just do it long enough to motivate Mr. Micelli to realize he's with the wrong woman and had better grab the right one before he misses his chance."

She laughed. "You don't know Tony. Angela almost got married to a guy a few years ago and Tony only talked her out of it because I begged him to."

"Do you think I should propose?"

She shook her head. "You don't understand. Tony can get very jealous, but never enough to actually tell Angela how he feels. Although if you could get him to dump Kathleen, I would appreciate it."

"I'll see what I can do."

That worried her a little. Mona didn't like Kathleen, but she didn't hate her. If it hadn't been Kathleen, it might've been somebody else coming along and turning Tony's head. Mona still didn't understand why Tony couldn't have just left it as a one-night stand, but she had hopes that this would not last much longer.

"Be careful, Maurice. I don't want you breaking Angela's heart. Or causing any other damage."

He kissed her hand and for a moment she could imagine him as he really was, a man who was hundreds of years old but looked Mona's age, dressed in a top hat and tails, and maybe a cape, rather than the well-preserved man Angela's age, in a well-cut, fashionable suit. "I will be delicacy itself."

Angela called from upstairs, "Christopher? Are you there? I'll be down in a minute."  
Maurice called up in his "Christopher" voice, "I'll count the seconds, My Darling!"

Mona rolled her eyes. Maurice could really lay it on thick. And Angela was such a romantic, she ate this stuff up. Not that Mona wanted to see Angela pining in her room, eating chocolate and mourning the loss of Tony. It was good to see her get out, but Mona had liked it better when Angela was seeing not-so-perfect Peter.

"So, Maury, what's your plan?"

"Well, as you're in on this, and obviously are not going to give me away, my next step is to invite her to Athens for the weekend."

"Greece!"

"Well, I don't mean Georgia."

"Why do you always have to overdo it? And Angela won't go. She's much too old-fashioned to run off to Europe with a man she's just met."

"Oh, I don't expect her to. But it should shake up your Mr. Micelli nicely."

She suspected he was probably right, although she hoped this wouldn't all backfire, as it could in several ways. "And how are you going to end this if it gets out of hand?"

"Christopher is going to be indicted on 26 counts of conspiracy and fraud."

"You're going to stand trial?"

"No, of course not. I shall escape to South America."

"Well, as long as you have a plan."

She wanted to grill him further, and find out more about Adam, but Angela came downstairs just then. Mona decided to mostly sit back and watch this all play out, since it did promise to be entertaining. And she'd step in if she had to, perhaps nudging Tony to fight for Angela, although that had never worked before.


End file.
